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Some time ago The Hawk's Eye (www.hawkseye.com) posted a newly developed tek for Psilocybe hispanica, but withdrew it later when Fanaticus got busted. I never read it nor downloaded it. Does anyone know if it exists somewhere, or do you have it and would be willing to post it?

Prisoner#1 to the rescue....I archived PF, Hawk and a few other sites after the announcement...I'll see if I can locate it...it'll be a few days, might be on one of several DVD's of my hard drive which is in a sad state right now....

Workman, thanks, but I had already tried the Wayback Machine (archive.org), and it isn't there. Guess either the P. h. grow tek was never added in the first place, or the thought police got there first...

WOW Workman, thanks for that link to archive.org! Such a nice site! I never imagined that this could exist, due to the space requirements. Almost too good to be true! I also can't believe that it's both free and ad-free! How can they possibly make any money? I know that Alexa Internet gives them donations, but without ads I wonder how long Alexa will be able to do this. Hopefully for very long!

it was parsed for my hard drive...that was providing the original link to the hispanica page, sorry for the confusion...and still have more crap to go through....I gotta get a larger drive...240 gigs is not enough....

well, i hope too. regardless, yesterday foaf spawned 1pt of colonized millet to mycota compost, wrapped in foil and placed outside (!) temps here are ranging between the low 50s F and low 70s, for now at least. we'll see

I haven't found any reference to mycota compost. Can you elaborate? What about zoo doo? I have a whole busketfull of that; what would be a good mixture to experiment? And did the P. hispanica grow really well on the millet?Thanks for your help.

WOW! I had no idea you guys were going through so much trouble to find that info in the hispanica tek. Mycofile pm me about it so I dug it up. There really is some good info in Raja's tek on the ps. hispanica, but I think this is the wrong time of year to establish that outdoor bed. Unless of course you live where its winter this time of year. Workman had some success with the Hispanica I'm sure he could shed some light on its growth parimeters.

The Cultivation of Psilocybe HispanicaJanuary 28th, 2000 by Raja

General Info

Ignacio Seral discovered Psilocybe hispanica in 1998. Currently, the mushroom is known to be endemic to the high hills of Spain. Unfortunately, because the species is completely new to science, there is little doccumentation exploring the nature and cultivation of this remarkable species. Rumor has it Paul Stamets, who is perhaps the leading expert in the study of macroscopic fungi, is composing a book in which the morphological characteristics and localities of this species are described, in addition to other exotic and rare psilocybin mushrooms.

As of now, mycologists seeking information pertaining to the growth parameters of the species lack any valid sources, other than the minute information presented by Ryche Hawk, who conversed with the discoverer about the new species. P. hispanica has been seen growing in snow, which indicates the species fruits in cold temperatures. The hills where the mushroom was found lacks much vegetative growth, other than the few species of grass that grow in the highland conditions. Photos of the mushrooms in the wild indicate they are seldom sheltered by vegetation, and are generally exposed to the atmosphere. However, they greatly appreciate the tall grasses surrounding them, which create an optimal microclimate for fruition. The fruiting substrate for the newly discovered species is horse dung, and interestingly, P. semilanceata is found growing in Spain in the same substrate and climate. The latter species commonly grows in grass.

Until now, there have been no publicly reported cases of any sucessful culturists growing this species. Of course, there may be some individuals who have sucessfully grown the species, yet due to punitive penalties enforced by local and federal laws, particularly in the United States, they remain anonymous. The purpose of this article is to share the multitude of data and observations collected by the author and colleagues so future cultivators have accurate and more detailed information pertaining to the cultivation of Psilocybe hispanica. Also, I hope this doccument further clarifies the complexity of the mushroom cycle so humans can maximize the use of this precious resource. The ideas discussed in this text also apply to some edible and gourmet mushrooms, which are of great value to our health and economy.

Starting the Culture

In order to begin growing the species, either spores or live mycelium (ie. a culture) must be acquired. There are various different methods of cultivating the species, so I'll mainly focus on the method I chose. I acquired spores and made a sterile spore solution with filtered water (note: you do not need to use purified H2O, but I highly recommend it so you minimize the proliferation of any contaminants). I sterilized a tapered half- pint jar filled with water in a pot of boiling water for approximately 45 minutes. I filled the jar with only 20 cc's of water, because I wanted the solution to be as concentrated as possible. I allowed the sterilized water to cool in the freezer, and then I transferred the spores into it, allowing them to hydrate in the refidgerator for two days. I stored the solution in the fridge so in case any contaminants were in the solution, their metabolic rates would be hindered. Thus far, the procedure I've described is a standard method of making a spore solution for any desirable saporophytic mushroom via syringe method.

Similar to other corprophiles, like Panaeolus tropicalis and Panaeolus cyanescens, Psilocybe hispanica will germinate and grow on brown rice flour/vermiculite (Psilocybe Fanaticus (PF) method). I prepared twelve tapered half-pint jars with the PF-style substrate and innocuated each jar with four drops of solution in four different locations. I didn't want to use too much solution because my spore transfer was done in an unsterile environment, and I wanted to minimize any foreign invadors.

A far superior method to the PF tek would involve using agar. The spores would be directly transferred onto the medium and allowed to incubate. Once the culture is started, the most vigorous portion of the mycelium is sectored and transferred to another plate. If the plate is partially contaminated, the uncontaminated portion can be cut out, which alleviates any worries of losing the culture. The procedure of sectoring is repeated until a desired strain is isolated from the mass of other strains.

Depending on the age, method of storage, and how well they hydrate in the solution, spores innoculated into brown rice flour and vermiculite take anywhere from a week to a month and a half (or potentially longer) to germinate. I've noticed the longer you keep the spores in the solution, the faster they germinate. However, relative to my experiments, I did not leave them in solution past one week, so I don't know the optimal amount of time to leave them hydrated before innoculation. The culture prefers to be incubated at room temperature, and grows terribly slow at 70 degress F. or higher. In fact, the optimal temperature range is anywhere from 60-67 degrees F.

Brief Description of Mycelium

The mycelium is cottony and superior strains (ie. Strains that grow the fastest) are solid white. Weaker strains are characterized by their almost transparent cobweb-like consistency. Because I used such a little amount of spore solution, I observed a few sites, which were innoculated, contained only one site of germination. My intention was to isolate a strain without the use of agar. However, determining how many strains germinated per site of innoculation is almost impossible without the use of a microscope during the early hyphal stages of development. Fortunately, I was able to isolate a good chunk of mycelium, which grew vigorously dense. I opened the jar when it was about 15-20% colonized, and cut out an individual strain (with my unsterile hands). This one strain was different because it exhibited thick growth, and only one site of germination occurred at one of the four sites of innoculation. Aprroximately 4-5 grams of colonized brown rice flour was removed and spawned onto dung.

The outdoor bed of mycelium, which fruited, was made up of 15+ sites of germination from one half-pint jar, all of which displayed moderate to high levels of vigor. I speculate neighboring strains inside the colonizing jar, which literally grew over the weak ones, potentiated the fruiting process. The first jar to fully colonize was incubated at room temperature from 10-8-99 to 11-8-99 (exactly 30 days). Bacterial Contamination

Amazingly, even though all of my jars contained bacterial contamination, they still were able to fully colonize the substrate and kill it off. I wasn't surprised that I had contamination because of my unsterile techniques, but I was completely perplexed with the fact that the only way I could detect the foreign invador was through smell, not sight. There was absolutely no macroscopic sign of the brown rice flour decomposing or anything other than the intended culture growing. Even though I rationalized the bacteria would pose no harm to the culture, the transfer of the spawn to dung proved otherwise. Spawning

I acquired some well-decomposed horse dung and pasturized it in the oven at 200 degrees F. for 45 minutes. I broke up the spawn into the smallest pieces possible so it could cover a maximum surface area. It smelled like the typical mushroom you buy at the store (button mushroom), and the odor was so strong it "boxed" the entire room. Ironically, after being pasturized, the horse manure had a pleasant odor to it. When selecting horse dung, make sure it does not have a pungent urea smell to it, because it will likely contaminate or have too much potent nigrogenous waste for the fungus to break down. I added 50% spawn to 50% horse dung (just to be on the safe side), and mixed it until everything was evenly combined. I placed the jar filled with the mixture outdoors in a dark shed, where it was averaging 67 degrees during the day and low 50's during the night. I figured because the bacteria may still be alive, the cooler temperature should favor the fungus and inhibit the bacteria. Also, I wanted the organism to become acclimated to the local outdoor temperatures so it wouldn't go into shock once exposed.

To my dismay, the spawn took a long time to recover, and the smell of bacteria was almost overwhelmingly prominent. After a week, the mycelium had recovered, yet the mixture wasn't fully colonized. A week later (two weeks total), the culture looked almost exactly the same, and I feared it would perish or lose the battle with the bacteria. Selecting an Outdoor Location

At this point, I had no choice but to establish the cultures in outdoor beds. I didn't have any information as to where to plant it, but based on the pictures I had seen of them in the wild, I chose an open grassy field. The field is fully exposed to direct sunlight, yet the bed is shaded and protected by the surrounding grass. The grass at that point had just started to grow and wasn't more than 2" tall. I reasoned by the time the bed was ready to fruit, the grass would cover the entire surface of the casing, creating shelter from the acrid rains and sunlight rays. It would also retain a lot of moisture, keeping the humidity at a desirable level and allowing fresh oxygen to replace the high levels of CO2 given off by the fungus.

Throughout the entire 2 months that the bed spent outdoors before it fruited, I did not water it the entire time. The entire rainfall for that month was close to 5 inches. In the morning dew collected on the hairs of the grass, and this supported the water requirements for the bed.

I dug a circular hole about 3.5" deep with the diameter of about a foot. I evenly layed the spawn on the bottom of the hole, and covered it with approx. 3" casing layer of pasturized horse dung. I watered it, and left it alone for a while. The decomposed horse dung held very little nutrients, and thus served as both the casing and the substrate for growth.

About a month later, I was curious as to whether the mycelium was still alive or not, so I dug into the casing. The spawn had grown a feeble 3 mm (approx.) into the casing, but at least it was still alive and doing fine. I didn't need to water the bed too often because the ground remained fairly moist during the month of December. I decided to use the Stamets method of just leaving the bed alone.

The best time to establish beds is at least three months prior to fruiting. In California and other temperate locations, I advise starting the cultures around August and placing them outdoors as soon as possible with no more than 2-3" of well-decomposed horse dung. If you use fresh dung or add nutrients to composted horse dung you risk losing your culture. In our experiments with straw enhanced dung, the mycelium was not strong enough to fight off the contaminents, and failed to fruit. If the casing is any deeper than three inches, there's a high probability the culture will too slow overcome contamination. On the other hand a very thin casing layer causes dehydration.

Fruiting Conditions

From what I've observed, there are four different environmental factors (excluding the substrate) which contribute to fruiting: air, light, relative humidity, and temperature. Temperatures from around 40 degrees F to 60F supported primordial growth. My culture began pinning under a wide scope of temperatures, ranging approx. 30 degrees F up to approx. 65 degrees F. I did notice after short periods of declining temperatures pinning occurred. The fruit bodies fully matured after about a week and a half after pinning.

Although the humidity constantly fluctuated, it remained relatively high during the whole process of fruiting, and always stayed around 60% or above. However, the surrounding grasses sheltered the whole bed from the outside climate, and kept the humidity high. The grass trapped a large surface area of water drops within the vicinity of the bed. The constant evaporation of water was caused by the increase of the temperature from direct sunlight rays hitting the leaf material.

Pinheads developed anywhere from 0.5-1.0 cm underneath the uncolonized casing layer, and the mycelium seldom grew further into the casing. There were minute portions of the casing layer, which were colonized by the mycelium. These spots of mycellium generally showed up directly below the fruits.

thank you, richie. this is very helpful. in fact it contains the only descriptions i have found so far on the hispanica mycelium. i am pleased that raja's observations seem to confirm i am actually growing hispanica, and not a contam. i found his description very precise. also, i am conforted by the apparently wide range of fruiting temps.